
Gangster Squad (review)
Gangster Squad! In color! This is blustery postwar mythologizing about the violent birth of the modern metropolis, all pulpy-bright even when it’s night…
film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
Gangster Squad! In color! This is blustery postwar mythologizing about the violent birth of the modern metropolis, all pulpy-bright even when it’s night…
It’s a good thing Mark Wahlberg is so effortlessly charming: he keeps this rather generic heist thriller rolling along as smoothly as it does.
It’s hard to imagine that Hunter S. Thompson created his semiautobiographical journalist Paul Kemp as such an ineffectual figure…
In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) returns to slime his adorably retro evil high finance all over a new generation of hotshot young MBAs, including Shia LaBeouf. This flick sprang from (among other films)…
Ever since he was a kid, Jack Harris never wanted to be a pornographer…
The closest I will ever come to visiting another planet, and what an exhilarating trip.
Fun for Wednesdays! We look at an image from an upcoming movie and write snarky, witty, or otherwise entertaining captions for it. No prizes, it’s just for fun. Avatar is the long-awaited epic science fiction film from James Cameron that is going to change cinema forever, cure world hunger, and bring peace to the Middle … more…
Take a break from work: watch a trailer… Remember: It’s wrong — it’s totally wrong — to glamorize crime and criminals. That’s why John Dillinger, who was a bad man, a very bad man, is being played by ultrasexy Johnny Depp. So that no one gets the idea that criminals are sexy. Yes, this trailer … more…
And that realistic attitude is a big part of what makes Boiler Room so refreshing: Younger doesn’t offer any pat, happy endings, doesn’t have all his characters wrap things up by kissing and making nice. The film ends on such an abrupt note — and such a perfect one — that I gasped with unexpected delight.